The ‘Accept Templates’ rule is a core part of Check Point’s Stateful Inspection. It automatically drops non-initial packets (like subsequent packets in a TCP stream) if there is no corresponding entry in the connection table, protecting the firewall from state table exhaustion attacks. It is not a user-configurable rule for performance tuning based on traffic patterns.

Modern applications, especially P2P and evasive ones, rarely use fixed ports. They often use port randomization, hop between ports, or use common allowed ports like HTTP/HTTPS. Relying solely on a port-based rule is ineffective. A proper solution requires using Check Point’s Application Control blade, which uses deep packet inspection and behavioral analysis to identify and control applications regardless of the port they use.

The command ‘cpstat -f mgmt fw’ displays statistics for the management module, including a list of firewalls (gateways) that are currently connected and communicating with the management server. This provides a clear, authoritative list for audit purposes. ‘cphaprob stat’ shows cluster status, ‘cpconfig’ is for configuration, and ‘fw tab -t connections -s’ shows the connections table on a gateway, not the management server’s list of managed gateways.

Many sensitive sites (banking, healthcare, government) use certificate pinning or have legal/regulatory requirements that break or prohibit man-in-the-middle decryption. The correct, policy-compliant approach is to create exclusions. Check Point’s categorization database includes categories like ‘Finance’ and ‘Health’ for this exact purpose. An exclusion rule placed above the general inspection rule will bypass decryption for these trusted, sensitive sites while maintaining inspection for all other HTTPS traffic.

Check Point ClusterXL supports multiple, physically separate synchronization networks for redundancy. This is configured in the cluster object’s topology page under ‘Synchronization Networks’. You add a ‘First’ network (primary) and a ‘Second’ network (backup). The cluster members will use the first network and automatically fail over to the second if the first becomes unavailable, ensuring state synchronization is maintained even during a physical link failure.

A sudden increase in CPU on firewall workers after a policy install is often related to kernel-level processing (connections table, NAT, etc.). ‘fw ctl pstat’ is the definitive tool for this. It provides a wealth of kernel statistics, including connections table size and hash chain length, NAT table status, and more. A misconfiguration or software bug introduced in the JHF could cause table bloating or inefficient lookups, which ‘pstat’ will reveal. While ‘cpview’ or ‘top’ show CPU load, ‘fw ctl pstat’ provides the specific kernel diagnostics needed.

To meet all conditions: 1) The Firewall blade is the foundation for basic access (source/destination). 2) The Application Control blade is required to identify and allow the specific ‘Apache Struts’ application. 3) The Time object feature (part of the Access Control policy) is required to restrict the rule to ‘business hours’. IPS is for threats, Content Awareness/URL Filtering are for web content categorization, which are not required by the stated conditions.

Check Point’s Revision Control feature (formerly called Policy Package Revision Control) automatically tracks changes to the management database. If the policy has not been installed, the deleted object still exists in a previous revision. You can browse revisions, see what was changed, and restore individual objects directly from within SmartConsole. This is the official and most efficient recovery method for this scenario.

When Identity Awareness is enabled and logging is configured for it, the user name associated with an IP address is captured directly in the firewall log entries. In SmartConsole’s Logs & Monitor tab, you can add the ‘User Name’ column to the log view. By filtering for the specific source IP (10.10.5.100), destination IP, and time, you can immediately see the username logged for that session. This is faster than checking CLI mappings (which show current state) or digging through raw log files.

The ‘Accept Templates’ rule is a core part of Check Point’s Stateful Inspection. It automatically drops non-initial packets (like subsequent packets in a TCP stream) if there is no corresponding entry in the connection table, protecting the firewall from state table exhaustion attacks. It is not a user-configurable rule for performance tuning based on traffic patterns.0